


These Things Are Ours

by giselleslash



Series: Holiday Fic Series (2015) [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anger, Bucky Barnes Feels, Established Relationship, Guilt, Love, M/M, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Protectiveness, Rough Sex, Steve Feels, Steve Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 05:08:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5526599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giselleslash/pseuds/giselleslash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's angry about the things Bucky never got and the things he had to live through, but to Bucky it's worth it because it brought the two of them to this moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Things Are Ours

Bucky wakes up to an empty bed. Steve’s side is already cold even though when Bucky looks at the alarm clock it reads 3:39. He sighs and rubs his hands over his face then groans as he rolls off the side of the bed and onto his feet. 

Goddamn Steve. 

Bucky knows exactly where he is and why. 

They’d had a nice Christmas Eve, quiet and just the two of them. The first they’d had together in a long, long time. A war, seventy years, and a fucking lot of pain and disaster and end of the worlds had made last night all the sweeter to Bucky, but he knows Steve, knows him to his very core, and Steve can’t hide anything from him.

Bucky grabs the duvet off the top of the bed and wraps himself up in it as he slips on Steve’s old man slippers that the dumbass hasn’t even bothered putting on himself. He shuffles over to the sliding glass doors that lead out onto their balcony. Bucky hates those goddamn glass doors, any incompetent asshole can break into them, but Steve loves them and Bucky ain’t never been able to say no to Steve for the things that really matter. He can say no to him all the livelong day, and be really fucking happy doing it, but if Steve honestly wants something Bucky is never gonna say no. 

Steve doesn’t even flinch at the quiet slide of the door opening. He’s just standing there in his pyjama bottoms and nothing else, staring out at the lights of the city. 

“Goddammit, Steve,” Bucky mumbles as he walks up behind Steve and wraps his arms around him, enveloping him in the duvet with him. “Why do ya gotta do this tonight? We had a nice night, didn’t we?”

“We did, the best,” Steve agrees as he tangles his fingers with Bucky’s against his chest. “I’m sorry, Buck.”

“Don’t apologize, just come back to bed with me.”

“In a minute.”

Bucky presses his lips against the back of Steve’s neck. “Those demons ain’t going to go away if you stand out here and freeze another minute.”

Steve sighs. “Bucky.”

“I know,” Bucky says quietly. “I know, babe.”

“We were,” Steve says. “We were having such a good night, you and me and nothing else. Nothing else but me loving you so damn much and knowing you love me right back.”

“You sure as hell got that part right, Rogers. You’re the goddamn heart of me.”

Steve’s fingers tighten around Bucky’s and he leans back into his chest. 

“I was lying there in bed thinking about all those years, all those years.”

“Stop it, Steve. Those years are long gone.”

Steve ignores him. 

“You were there next to me, asleep, making that little snoring noise you make and I got so angry. So fucking angry, Buck. You were alive all those years. You coulda had so many things, everything I ever wanted you to have. I thought about you in a home with a wife who loved you and so many beautiful, smart kids. God Buck they would’ve been so smart, just like you. You would’ve been so happy and everything we did would’ve been worth something. You were owed so much love, so much happiness, and you never got it. Not one second of it, and the hate and anger that went through me —”

Steve is shaking and Bucky wants to put his hand over Steve’s mouth, shut him up so he doesn’t say anymore. It makes Bucky sick to know all of the things Steve takes on his own shoulders, none of it is his fault, and usually Bucky can get him to see that, but there are things Steve can’t, won’t, let go. 

And Steve will never let go of this guilt, not for as long as they live, and all Bucky can do is hold onto him when he gets like this. Hold onto him so fucking tightly it hurts so he damn well knows Bucky’s here now and all those years led to this. 

“I could burn down the whole goddamn fucking world.”

Bucky untangles his fingers from Steve’s and lets the duvet fall at their feet as he slips around him until they’re face to face and he can take Steve’s face in his hands.

“Look at me,” Bucky says.

“Buck, I know —”

“Just look at me.” Bucky interrupts. “There’s no way I’m taking your anger from you, that’s yours, and I know all those things you think I never got, and shoulda got, kill you. I know they eat you up, but you gotta know, too, that in my mind I got everything I deserved. I’m right here now with you. Those years make me angry too, I’d burn down the world with you, but I got you. I wasn’t ever gonna have any of those other things. I wasn’t gonna love anyone but you, I wasn’t gonna live my life with anyone but you, and you fucking know that, Steve. You know it, so you fucking look at me and tell me you know that.”

Steve’s fingers have pushed themselves into Bucky’s hair and he’s gripping him so tightly Bucky feels the pull of it against his skull, but it’s grounding Steve to him and he doesn’t give a shit. Steve’s breathing hard and Bucky digs his fingers into him, pulls him closer until their foreheads touch and the heat of Steve’s breaths ghost over his face.

“You tell me,” Bucky says again, voice harsh and insistent.

“I know,” Steve finally says, and says it again, and again. “I know. I know I know I know —”

“This is my reward, this life, with you. I get this now, I get to have you and love you and no one’s ever taking that away from me, and it’s worth all those years. To me, it’s worth it.”

Steve’s kissing him then, and it’s so fierce and desperate Bucky thinks it must be shaking the damn world apart, and he gives everything over to Steve. He can feel Steve’s tears sliding down his own cheeks - hot, angry tears - and he knows exactly what Steve’s thinking, that in the end, it’s worth it to him too. It’s a dark, twisted thing, but neither one of them ever claimed to be fine, to be normal or simple. They just keep on twisting, twining and winding together like thorny vines, until there’s just the one tangled mass. 

They’re a fucking mangled lump of thorns, but goddamn if they’re not stronger than anything else around them. 

Bucky’s biting at Steve’s lip and pretty soon Steve’s hands are running down Bucky’s back, over his ass, and are digging into the backs of his thighs. Bucky wraps an arm around Steve’s neck as he lifts him up, his thighs clamping down around Steve’s hips as he walks the both of them back into their bedroom. 

“Show me,” Bucky tells Steve as they fall down onto the bed, push at each other’s pyjamas until they kick them free. 

Show me everything. Show me how you love me, how you need me, how I need you. Show me how to feel.

Show me we’re alive. 

And even though every time they make love, every time they fuck they leave marks on one another, this time those marks are visible. They bruise and they ache and the both of them sigh with the relief of it all. The fucking beautiful release. 

They’ve always torn each other apart, physically and emotionally, there’s no way not to when their love is so bound up in each other. They’re a great big terrible thing, the two of them.

And it’s worth it.

It’s so fucking worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me [here](http://gigi-gigi.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. :)


End file.
